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Abiotic stresses, primarily drought, salinity, heat, cold, flooding and ultra-violet rays are causing widespread crop losses worldwide. Because of the complexity of the stress-tolerance traits, conventional breeding techniques have met with little success in fulfilling the world fooddemands . Therefore, to face the abiotic stresses, novel and potent approaches should be devised and engineering of phytohormones could be a method of choice to increase the crop productivity

Crop wild relatives (CWRs) are the potential source of novel traits and genetic variation in food crops with narrow genetic base. CWRs include immediate progenitor of crop species and other species of plants which are closer to them in near evolutionary history. CWRs are the sources of novel alleles for several important traits of nutritional and agronomical importance. Introgression of such valuable alleles into working germplasm of a breeding programme depends on sexual compatibility of CWRs with crop species in cultivation. Scientific techniques have been developed to overcome compatibility among them up to certain extent. Simultaneous discovery and transfer of useful alleles into cultivable background have been demonstrated in certain crop species with success. Utilisation of completely incompatible species has been made easier by methods such as somatic hybridization. With ever increasing innovations in the field of genomics science, hope to harness the potential of CWR has grown up to new heights. CWRs have been successfully utilised to enhance quality of crop produce in wheat, barley, tomato, etc., and also have been exploited to create new species such as triticale as well as to understand crop evolutionary history in different crops. CWRs are also a good source of cytoplasmic male sterility which makes them amenable to boost commercial breeding programs. Many CWRs are natural source of abiotic and biotic stresses. Importance of CWR has become more relevant in the era where threat of climate change is apparent and mitigation approaches such as transgenics are being increasingly criticised on many fronts. In the era facing the challenges of genetic erosion of diversity and extinction of species, systematic collection, conservation, and characterization of available genetic diversity of CWRs is immensely important. Prebreeding of wild germplasm is among other challenges for successful utilization of such highly potential genetic resources for enhancing crop breeding efforts.

Total phenol content of the walnut genotypes was determined to explore the relationship between total phenols and regeneration response for different walnut genotypes. Walnut leaves from ten genotypes (CITHWalnut-I, CITH-Walnut-II, BBW-8, CITH-Walnut-IV, BP-3, SP-1, LG-11, Hamdan, Suleiman, and Opex Culchery) were used for extraction of total phenols through modified Folin-Ciocalteu method. Total leaf phenolic content ranges from 140 μg g−1 (WGB-1) to 285 μg g−1 (BBW-8). Phenolic interactions expressed as darkening of the explants lead to death. Among different antioxidants used ascorbic acid @ 350 mg/l was found best with almost no phenol exudation in the medium and shoot initiation occurred after 8 days of inoculation. The number of shoots was highest (10), followed by citric acid used @ 350 mg/l showing low degree of exudation where shoot initiation was noted in 15 days and with 15.0 shhots per explant.

World population is escalating day by day and by 2050 it is expected to reach 9.1 billion, but agricultural production is not rising at a parallel pace. In order to feed the world population, global agricultural production should be increased by 60-110 per cent and 70 per cent more food for an additional 2.3 billion people by 2050 [1,2]. Agriculture production is dwindled mainly due to biotic and abiotic stresses. Abiotic stress is one of the major factors which negatively affect the crop growth and productivity world-wide. Hence, these are one of major area of concern to fulfill the required food demand [3,4]. The major abiotic stresses worldwide causing risks to food security are high salinity, drought, submergence and cold [5,6]. Among these stresses, drought is the first environmental stress responsible for decrease in agricultural production worldwide and to fulfill the demand, tons of efforts are being applied to improve crop yields [7,8]. Drought affects plants in countless ways like it affects plant growth, yield, membrane integrity, pigment content, osmotic adjustments, water relations and photosynthetic activity [9]. Salinity is the second most prevalent soil problem in rice-growing countries after drought [10] and rice is considered as a salt sensitive crop in early seedling stages [11] which limits its productivity [12,13]. Among 130 mha of world rice area, approximately 30 per cent area contains salt levels too high to allow normal rice yield. The decline in rice yield under reasonably salt-affected soils is anticipated to be 68 per cent [14]. Due to global warming, rise in sea levels, surplus irrigation without appropriate drainage in inlands and underlying rocks rich in detrimental salts, area under salt stress is growing. It is expected that if present scenario persists, 50 per cent of current cultivated land will be loss for agriculture by 2050 [15]. Cereals are the most significant source of calories to humans. Rice, wheat and maize offer 23%, 17% and 10% calories globally [16]. Rice (

Saffron is an important spice derived from the stigmas of Crocus sativus, a species belonging to the family Iridaceae. Due to its triploid nature it is sterile and is not able to set seeds, so it is propagated only by corms. The natural propagation rate of most geophytes including saffron is relatively low. An in vitro multiplication technique like micropropagation has been used for the propagation of saffron. In the present study, various explants were cultured on different nutrient media supplemented with various concentrations of plant growth regulators to standardize the best media combination for obtaining optimum response with respect to corm production and development of Stigma Like Structures (SLS). Highest response (60 %) was observed with half ovaries on G-5 media supplemented with 27 μM NAA and 44.4 μM BA followed by 55 % on LS media with 27 μM NAA and 44.4 μM BA. Maximum size (1.3 g) of microcorms were obtained from apical buds on the LS media supplemented with 21.6 μM NAA and 22.2 μM. Stigma Like Structures were developed from half ovary explants both directly and indirectly. Maximum number (120 indirectly and 20 directly) and size (5.2 cm) of SLS were obtained in G-5 medium supplemented with 27 μM NAA and 44.4 μM BA followed by 100 indirectly and 20 directly and 4.5 cm long on LS medium supplemented with 27 μM NAA and 44.4 μM BA.

The implication of molecular biology in crop improvement is now more than three decades old. Not surprisingly, technology has moved on, and there are a number of new techniques that may or may not come under the genetically modified (GM) banner and, therefore, GM regulations. In cisgenic technology, cisgenes from crossable plants are used and it is a single procedure of gene introduction whereby the problem of linkage drag of other genes is overcome. The gene used in cisgenic approach is similar compared with classical breeding and cisgenic plant should be treated equally as classically bred plant and differently from transgenic plants. Therefore, it offers a sturdy reference to treat cisgenic plants similarly as classically bred plants, by exemption of cisgenesis from the current GMO legislations. This review covers the implications of cisgenesis towards the sustainable development in the genetic improvement of crops and considers the prospects for the technology.

Data of the experiments revealed the status of winter wheat genotypes with respect to resistance against stripe rust at adult stage. Among the twenty five genotypes evaluated, China 84–40022, Drina, Drina NS 720, Joss Cambier, Mega, Saptadhara and WW-27 were resistant; Bolal, Centruck, Golden valley, WW-23, WW-24 and WW-25 were moderately resistant and PBW-343 and Agra local were highly susceptible to stripe rust under field conditions. The proline content and total phenols maintained a highly significant negative correlation with final rust severity (FRS) in field across the wheat genotypes. Proline content and total phenols were found maximum in Mega followed by Bolal whereas minimum values for these traits were found in PBW-343 followed by Agra local.

Present investigation was undertaken during 2012–2014 to generate information through evaluation of a set of material at the farmers'field along with the farmers'variety as a check through stability using Eberhart and Russel model. The yield and yield attributing traits of all genotypes was recorded on ten competitive plants of both grandmother and mother trial. The genotypes were evaluated for stability analysis and revealed divergence across locations. The mean squares of all the traits were significant reflecting that the material was genetically divergent. The pooled deviation was significant and the variance due to variety × environment was significant for various traits indicating that the variation in the performance of the genotypes is both unpredictable and predictable. Most of the genotypes were having higher mean than the average, bi less than unity indicating that the varieties were more specifically adapted to the unfavorable environments than favourable ones. Some of the genotypes having higher mean yield, bi > 1 and Sdi2 tending to zero were specifically adapted to favourable environments. On the basis of stability parameters genotypes WB-185, WB-195, WB-966 and Shalimar Rajmash-1 were identified as the most stable genotypes for seed yield per plot across all locations on the basis of high mean performance and non-significant estimates of bi and Sdi2 from unit and zero respectively, however latter genotype showed sensitivity to better environments for biological yield on the basis of significant bi estimates. Similarly these genotypes were identified as consistent for early flowering for all the locations.

It was evident from a two year experiment that among the combination between vermicompost and boron, the application of minimum dose of boron (B1=10Kg/ha) with maximum dose of vermicompost (V3=20q/ha) i.e. B1V3 application reduced the number of days taken to flowering, 50% of flowering, ripening, 50% of ripening as compared to the other treatments and found superior in increasing the available N, P2O5, K2O, and Organic carbon in soil. The highest fruit yield was recorded with the combined application of 10 kg borax and 20 q vermicompost (1% N)/ha. The same treatment i.e. B1V3, was also found to be superior in increasing the better results regarding most of the parameters. Moreover the application B1V3 increased availability of N, P, K and Organic Carbon, which exerts positive effect on growth, development and yield of tomato.

The present study entitled “In vitro Regeneration Studies in Brassica napus, variety GSL-1 and DGS-1 was carried out in the Biotechnology Laboratory, Division of Genetics and Plant Breeding SKUAST-J. Brassica napus, variety GSL 1 and DGS-1 were cultured on MS Media supplemented with different concentrations of growth regulators. The sterilization treatment with HgCl2 (0.1%) for 3 minutes resulted in highest per cent of aseptic seeds and survival of seedlings. Highest callus induction was observed in GSL-1. MS medium augmented with 2, 4-D at 2–2.5 mg/l. Different concentrations of growth regulators in media showed a significant difference in the callus induction frequency (CIF) and regeneration frequency (RF) for both the genotypes tested. MS medium supplemented with BAP (5.0 mg/l) and 2, 4-D (0.5 mg/l) showed highest shoot regeneration frequency in GSL-1.

Different explants of local chrysanthemum cultivars available in West Bengal including leaf, shoot tip and ray floret were employed to compare their efficiency for direct in vitro regeneration system. The explants were inoculated in Murashige and Skoog (MS) media supplemented with varied combinations of indole acetic acid (IAA), benzylaminopurine (BAP). The auxins indole -3-butyric acid (IBA) was used to induce rooting. Maximum multiple shoots production occurred at 1.0 mg/L BAP and 0.1 mg/L NAA for leaf explants, 2.0 mg/L BAP and 0.2 mg/L NAA combination for shoot tip explants and BAP (4.0 mg/L) + NAA (0.1 mg/l) for ray floret explants. Among the treatments, IBA 1.0 mg/L for both leaf and shoot tip regenerated plants and 0.5 mg/L for ray floret regenerates proved to be the best for promoting root regeneration as compared to the other treatments tried. Among the various carrier substrates tested for acclimatization, soil + sand + FYM (1:2:1) fortified with ½ strength MS plant salt mixture proved to be ideal substrate as maximum plant survived and a maximum of 82.3% survivability was obtained from shoot tip derived plantlets. Therefore, shoot tip explants are the most suitable type of explants for plant regeneration of chrysanthemum through direct somatic embryogenesis. However, direct plant regeneration through ray floret explants will also be useful to recover the flower colour mutants.

Crop improvement technologies developed at various research institutes of ICAR and state agricultural universities need to be practically demonstrated at the beneficiary farmer's field. To attain this objective the concept of Krishi Vigyan Kendras (Farm Science Centre) came into existence. After the preliminary trials of proven technologies at the farm science centre level, large trials called the Front Line Demonstrations are conducted at farmer's field to check the suitability and reproducibility of the technology at micro environment level. In addition to the OFTs and FLDs, training is also given tofarmers, rural youth and extension functionaries from time to time to update then regarding the latest technologies developed for crop improvement.

In an field experiment conducted on pea (Pisum sativum L.) during rabi season of 2013–14 in acid soil of Senapati district, Manipur, India phosphorus was given in the form of single super phosphate and levels of P2O5 kg ha-1 (0, 40 and 60) had significant influence on total dry matter yield, phosphorus concentration in plants and phosphorus uptake by plant. Six extractants were tried viz. Bray 1, Bray 2, Mehlich 1, Mehlich 3, Troug and Olsen to assess the available phosphorus status of the acid soils. The suitability of these extractants was in the descending order: Bray 1> Troug> Bray 2> Mehlich 3> Olsen (pH-8.5)> Mehlich 1. Bray's P 1 extractable phosphorus showed the highest and positive correlations with dry matter yield (control) phosphorus content (control), phosphorus uptake (control), Bray's percent yield and uptake. Therefore this extractant may be used as an index of available phosphorus for pea (Arkel) grown on acid soils of Senapati district, Manipur, the critical level being 14 ppm (mg/kg). The critical limit of phosphorus concentration in plant at 40 days of planting was 0.42% according to the graphical procedure of Cate and Nelson (1965) using a scattered diagram.

Among the different contaminants in the environment, heavy metals (HMs) are unique due to the fact that they cannot be broken down to non-toxic forms. According to the reports published worldwide, these metals are released into the environment by both natural and anthropogenic sources, especially, mining and industrial activities, and automobile exhausts (for lead). They leach into underground waters, moving along water pathways and eventually depositing in the aquifer, or are washed away by run-off into surface waters thereby, resulting in water and subsequently soil pollution. The HM contamination is increasing day by day because of increase in population, industrialization and urbanization. Therefore, posing a serious threat to health and environment. Researchers worldwide have used different methods for removing these hazardous elements. Although, these methods for cleaning up of contaminated environment including soil and water are usually expensive and do not give optimum results. Currently, phytoremediation is an effective and affordable technology used to remove inactive metals and metal pollutants from contaminated soil and water. It includes phytoextraction, rhizofiltration, phytostabilization, phytovolatization, and phytodegradation/ phytotransformation. This technology is ecofriendly and exploits the ability of plants to remediate pollutants from contaminated sites. More than 400 plant species have been identified to have potential for soil and water remediation. Among them, Thlaspi, Brassica, Sedum alfredii H., and Arabidopsis species have been mostly studied. Our paper aims to cover the causes of HM pollution and phytoremediation technology, including HM uptake mechanism and several reports describing its application at field level.

In this study, the genetic relatedness of 82 walnut genotypes adapted to the North Western Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir, India was analyzed by combination of 13 SSR and 20 RAPD primers. A high level of genetic diversity was observed within populations with the number of alleles per locus ranging from one to five in case of SSR primers and two to six in case of RAPD primers, the proportion of polymorphic loci was 100 %, and similarity ranged from 12 % to 79 % with an average of 49 %. Dendrogram showed that all the accessions formed four main clusters with various degree of sub-clustering within the clusters. These results have implications for walnut breeding and conservation.

Abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity, and extreme temperatures are major limiting factors in plant growth and development and pose serious threat to global agricultural production. Here we describe a procedure, using a tobacco plastid transformation vector, to generate transplastomic plants with an enhanced ability to tolerate abiotic stresses such as salinity, drought, or cold stress. The procedure involves biolistic delivery of a plastid transformation vector into explants, antibiotic selection procedures, and -identification of transplastomic lines. The plastid transformation vector contains an aadA gene that encodes resistance to spectinomycin as a selectable marker along with the gene of interest for developing transplastomic plants that are tolerant to abiotic stresses. Shoot buds appear over the surface of bombarded explants following spectinomycin selection. Transplastomic shoots are multiplied following several rounds of -spectinomycin selection. Homoplasmic transplastomic lines are confirmed by spectinomycin and streptomycin double selection over a period of 4-5 weeks. The available reports suggest that transplastomic technology is a useful tool for expressing genes in plastids or chloroplasts for enhancing abiotic stress tolerance in plants.

Plants respond with changes in their pattern of gene expression and protein products when exposed to low tem- peratures. Thus ability to adapt has an impact on the distribution and survival of the plant, and on crop yields. Many spe- cies of tropical or subtropical origin are injured or killed by non-freezing low temperatures, and exhibit various symptoms of chilling injury such as chlorosis, necrosis, or growth retardation. In contrast, chilling tolerant species are able to grow at such cold temperatures. Conventional breeding methods have met with limited success in improving the cold tolerance of important crop plants involving inter-specific or inter-generic hybridization. Recent studies involving full genome profil- ing/sequencing, mutational and transgenic plant analyses, have provided a deep insight of the complex transcriptional mechanism that operates under cold stress. The alterations in expression of genes in response to cold temperatures are fol- lowed by increases in the levels of hundreds of metabolites, some of which are known to have protective effects against the damaging effects of cold stress. Various low temperature inducible genes have been isolated from plants. Most appear to be involved in tolerance to cold stress and the expression of some of them is regulated by C-repeat binding fac- tor/dehydration-responsive element binding (CBF/DREB1) transcription factors. Numerous physiological and molecular changes occur during cold acclimation which reveals that the cold resistance is more complex than perceived and involves more than one pathway. The findings summarized in this review have shown potential practical applications for breeding cold tolerance in crop and horticultural plants suitable to temperate geographical locations.

Crocus sativus L. is the costliest known spice and is produced only in some parts of the world that too in low quantities. Due to restricted geographical distribution the expansion in area for its production is rare possibility. Hence pro-duction of saffron under in-vitro conditions inde-pendent of geographical location is the best al-ternative. In present study stigma like structures and stigma have been produced under in-vitro conditions using ovary as explant with different phytohormone combinations on G-5 media. Ovaries were cultured on media supplemented with different combinations of phytohormones. Stigma-like structures and stigma appeared on cultured ovaries. Stigma like structures having high potential for apocarotenoid biosynthesis were observed on G-5 media supplemented with 27μM NAA & 44.4 μM BA. Direct stigma having apocarotenoids at par with natural stigma were obtained on G-5 media supplemented with 0.5 mgL-1 BAP, 0.1 mgL-1 NAA & 0.5 mgL-1 2, 4-D using half ovary as an explant. Present study is the first report on development of apocarotenoid rich SLS with very high frequency of SLS develop-ment and development of direct stigma under in-vitro conditions.

Plant kingdom, the base for every ecological pyramid, serves as a key source for food and evolution. Individualisation and analysis of genetic diversity and relatedness between or within different species, genera and population are the central task for many disciplines of biological science. Till recently, only the morphological traits/markers have been extensively used for this purpose. However, these morphological markers are often influenced by environment, which require special experimental designs to distinguish genotypic and phenotypic variation in a population. Later, the developments in biochemistry and molecular biology complemented many markers like protein, isozyme and DNA markers, which enable the breeders to overcome the limitations faced in the use of morphological markers. They show co-dominance (with exception of Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD), mostly a dominant marker) so that all the genotypes can be classified, a large number of samples can be analysed, require only a limited quantity of plant tissue for analysing, thus eliminating the need for raising a large population in the field and one need not wait for the maturity of the plant. All living organisms are made up of cells that are programmed by genetic material called DNA. This molecule is made up of a long chain of nitrogen-containing bases (there are four different bases: adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T). Only a small fraction of the DNA sequence typically makes up genes, i.e., that code for protein, while the remaining and major share of the DNA represents non-coding sequences, the role of which is not yet clearly understood. The genetic material is organised into sets of chromosomes (e.g., five pairs in Arabidopsis thaliana; 30 pairs in Bos taurus (cow), and the entire set is called the genome. In a diploid individual (i.e., where chromosomes are organised in pairs), there are two alleles of every gene, one from each parent. Marker-assisted selection (MAS) is the breeding strategy in which selection for a gene is based on molecular markers closely linked to the gene of interest, rather than gene itself and the markers are used to monitor the incorporation of desirable allele from the donor source. Molecular markers should not be considered as normal genes as they usually do not have any biological effect. Instead, they can be thought of as constant landmarks in the genome. They are identifiable DNA sequences, found at specific locations of the genome and transmitted by the standard laws of inheritance from one generation to the next. They rely on a DNA assay in contrast to morphological markers that are based on visible traits, and biochemical markers that are based on proteins produced by genes. Different kinds of molecular markers exist, such as restriction fragment length polymorphisms, RAPDs markers, amplified fragment length polymorphisms, microsatellites and single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Thus, MAS is the breeding strategy in which selection for a gene is based on molecular markers closely linked to the gene of interest, rather than gene itself and the markers are used to monitor the incorporation of desirable allele from the donor source.

An investigation was conducted during rabi season of 200910 and 2010–11 to assess the stability on yield and its attributes along with oil content of twelve genotypes of Indian mustard (Brassica juncea L. Czern and Coss) at two locations with two different dates of sowing creating eight artificial environments. Variance due to G x E interaction was significant for all the characters except for days to 50% flowering, while G x E (linear) was found to be significant for number of secondary branches per plant, number of siliquae per plant, siliqua length, seed yield per plot and 1000 seed weight. Genotypes, GM-2, JD-6 and Pusa Bold could be recommended for general cultivation and their utilization in future breeding programme. Under favourable environments, genotypes Kranti, NDRE-7, NDRE-22 and Sej2 are suitable for general cultivation. On the contrary, Urvashi could be recommended for poor/unfavourable environmental conditions.

Pre-breeding refers to all activities designed to identify desirable characteristics and/or genes from unadapted (exotic or semi-exotic) materials, including those that, although adapted, have been subjected to any kind of selection for improvement. It is an essential part of germplasm diversification strategies. Pre-breeding is the most promising alternative to link genetic resources and breeding programmes. As pre-breeding is being carried out, the resulting materials are expected to have merit to be included in ordinary breeding programmes. There are at least three distinct uses of genetic enhancement. The first is to prevent genetic uniformity and consequent genetic vulnerability. Only recently has pre-breeding-genetic enhancement-become a necessary, frequent and planned part of all plant breeding activities, an essential part of germplasm diversification strategies. Genetic enhancement has a second important purpose that of raising yield levels to new heights. This goal is more often hoped for than achieved, but it is true that most breakthrough cultivars have highly diverse parentage. The semi-dwarf wheat, the high yield dwarf rice, the first US hybrid sorghums and even the first US Corn Belt dent maize cultivars are examples. In each case, extensive pre-breeding preceded development of the breakthrough, high-yield cultivars. The pre-breeding was used to adapt diverse kinds of germplasm to new genetic backgrounds and new geographic locales. Genetic enhancement is used to bring in new quality traits not found in local cultivars. New levels of protein percentage in wheat or unusual starch properties in maize are examples.

Arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) is possibly the most prevalent constituent of global symbiosis and is created by 70–90% of land plant species with fungi that belong to a monophyletic phylum, the Glomeromycota. The initiation of the AM fungal root colonisation begins with hyphae growing towards the plant root and extensively around it, where they subsequently attach to the root surface. This relationship results in an improved acquisition of nutrients (e.g., phosphate and nitrates) from the soil by the plant partners and, in exchange, allows the Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) to obtain the photosynthetically fixed carbon sources (e.g., sugars) necessary for their survival and propagation. AM symbiosis is very common as the fungi involved can colonise a vast taxonomic range of both herbaceous and woody plants, which are geographically cosmopolitan and ubiquitous, occurring over a broad ecological range in plants growing in the arctic, temperate and tropical regions. In this review, the development, host range, functioning of AM and its benefits for sustainable farming will be discussed.

Heterosis for yield components and yield per plant was studied using 7x7 half diallel cross between bacterial wilt-resistant/tolerant genotypes and high-yielding varieties. The heterosis over better parent (BP) was up to the extent of -38.14%, 42.04%, 36.14, -5.70%, -5.65%, 26.32%, 63.44%, 4.83%, 16.50%, 38.88%, 62.70% and 45.89% was recorded for plant height, number of primary branches per plant, number of secondary branches per plant, days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, fruit set, fruit length, fruit width, number of locules per fruit, number of fruits per plant, fruit weight and fruit yield per plant, respectively. The extent of heterosis was not so high as we are also looking for resistant to the bacterial wilt disease. The crosses showing heterosis for fruit yield per plant were not heterotic for all the characters under study. The heterosis for yield was generally accompanied by heterosis for yield components. Five promising crosses viz., Arka Ahuti x LO-5973, Arka Vikas x TWC-4, Arka Ahuti x TWC-4, BRH-2 x LO-5973 and CAU-TS-9 x LO-5973 were identified for developing high-yielding F1 hybrids/varieties of tomato with many desirable traits.

Genetic material in plants is distributed into nucleus, plastids and mitochondria. Plastid has a central role of carrying out photosynthesis in plant cells. Plastid transformation is becoming more popular and an alternative to nuclear gene transformation because of various advantages like high protein levels, the feasibility of expressing multiple proteins from polycistronic mRNAs, and gene containment through the lack of pollen transmission. Recently, much progress in plastid engineering has been made. In addition to model plant tobacco, many transplastomic crop plants have been generated which possess higher resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses and molecular pharming. In this mini review, we will discuss the features of the plastid DNA and advantages of plastid transformation. We will also present some examples of transplastomic plants developed so far through plastid engineering, and the various applications of plastid transformation.